Technology
Spacecraft The discovery of the Fleischmann-Pons Particle in 2065 allowed for the development of cold fusion, greatly decreasing humanity's energy requirements. One of these developments was the creation of fusion rockets, which have become the primary engine utilized in spacecraft. Fusion rockets are fueled by frozen deuterium-tritium pellets bombarded with Fleischmann-Pons particles, heating liquid hydrogen reaction mass with proton-proton fusion to be expelled as hot exhaust (giving the engines a distinctive bright orange glow). These highly efficient engines allow for fast interplanetary travel; the fastest ships can travel between Earth and Mars in approximately one week, or from Earth to Luna in one day or less. The distance varies depending on the time of year as the planets complete their orbits and lighter ships are often faster due to requiring less thrust to speed up. Maneuvering jets using superheated steam as a reaction mass are used for attitude control and for minor thrust in locations where running a fusion rocket would potentially damage the surroundings. When ships are expected to have their crew capable of walking around on the inside, decks are often arranged stacked over the engines so the thrust of the engines provides artificial gravity. Artificial gravity can also be provided by spinning while in flight, but the gravity decreases closer to the center of the ship and the very center has no gravity at all. Spin gravity is generally only seen on large vessels, as spinning a ship with a small radius tends to cause nausea and disorientation. Older ships and very small craft that have no room for movement inside have no artificial gravity at all, as users are often expected to stay strapped in their seats unless necessary. Ships' computers are networked together, allowing for any system to be theoretically accessed from any console with the correct login credentials; they may not have full functionality depending on the controls available at the station. This allows for other stations to be used as limited backups in the event that the main console is disabled. Because objects in space will continue drifting with their momentum, running the engines is unnecessary for the most part after initial acceleration. Acceleration forces range from 2.5g to 4g, requiring all crew and passengers to strap into reclined launch seats during the beginning and end of the journey. After the initial burn to cruising speed, the ship can reduce its engines to 1g of acceleration and coast with little fuel expenditure. On approach to the destination, the ship spins 180 degrees and uses the engines to decelerate (requiring launch seats for the added force on the passengers) for more precise maneuvering to dock or land on a planet. Ships can often achieve much greater acceleration, but sustained accelerations as high as 8g can cause severe injury or unconsciousness and make operating the ship virtually impossible. Life aboard a spacecraft varies depending on its size and the money put into it. The smallest crafts with a crew of 1 to 3 may have no beds at all, while slightly larger ships have just enough bunks for the crew or require "hot racking" in shifts. Better equipped vessels with sufficient space will supply individual cabins for at least some of the passengers, while the most opulent private yachts are as finely furnished as the owner's usual home. Because artificial gravity is inconsistent and reliant on either acceleration or spinning, anything that isn't securely fastened to a surface will have magnets, Velcro patches, or straps and springs available to hold them down in zero-gee. Food, likewise, varies depending on amenities aboard. Retort pouched self-heating meals similar to military rations and shelf-stable products like bread and tortillas are commonplace; dehydrated food heated and rehydrated with a hot water injector takes up less space and weight, but requires a supply of water. Ships with space for a galley will often carry as much fresh food as they can afford and prepare meals, and the largest military ships and transport liners can carry small meat cloning vats for producing fresh meat. Because of the potential for the loss of artificial gravity, many space food products produce no crumbs and are provided in resealable packages to reduce the potential for floating debris, and drinks are provided in pouches with straws and shut-off valves or squeeze bottles. Traditional meals and cups can be used when the ship is accelerating or spinning for gravity, but at the user's own risk. These zero-gee serving methods are also standard on Luna, Mars, Pluto, and Io where gravity is heavily reduced. Because of the risk of coming into contact with space debris or rogue asteroids, civilian ships may legally carry semi-automatic cannons up to 120mm caliber (few carry anything smaller than 40mm) for destroying incoming threats. These provide limited self-defense against pirates as well and are insufficient to seriously threaten even a small military vessel. Space Stations Millions of humans live off-planet, including over 100,000 on several space stations in orbit around various heavenly bodies. The majority of the colonies are of the Stanford Torus design, with a ring-shaped design that spins constantly to provide gravity to the inner surface. The largest colonies of Dawn, Dusk, and Eclipse are a Bernal Sphere, shaped as a hollow sphere with long poles at either end. Life aboard a space station varies depending on size, but tends to be far more difficult than life on even a smaller planet. Material must be carefully harvested and recycled to ensure a minimum of waste, leading to greater reliance on cloned meat and soy products with nutrient augmentation due to the lack of space taken up by these facilities. The air is recycled and filtered, giving it a stale taste. Dawn and Dusk, thanks to their relative wealth and large inner space, have sufficient agriculture for regular consumption of fresh food, "real" meat and dairy products taken from live animals, and actual beer, wine, whiskey, and other beverages instead of sachi imitations. Because the rotation of a station provides artificial gravity, the gravity is weaker in a Bernal Sphere closer to the poles and the closer one gets to the center of the sphere; in a Stanford Torus, the gravity gets lower the further from the ground one gets. The atmosphere flows with the rotation to avoid strong winds at ground level, which will eventually cause any objects left floating high in the air to eventually drift back to the ground, and the Coriolis Effect causes dropped objects and liquids to follow a curve instead of making a straight line to the ground. Spin gravity can cause nausea and dizziness in humans until they get used to it. The unusual gravity allows for flying cars and jetbikes to exist, which are used for occasional races, and pedal-powered flying vehicles at the lower gravity poles of a Bernal Sphere. Maglev trains are common for providing rapid transit from one side of a station to the other. Stanford Torus designs have a continuous line circling the station, while Bernal Sphere designs have two one-way lines with a zero-gee transfer at each pole to avoid the unusual shift in gravity from riding a loop around. Like most places in the solar system, colonies maintain strict population controls to avoid risking overpopulation. Children born beyond the limit allowed by the colony must be sent off-world for adoption or placement in an orphanage. Medical Technology The advancement of stem cell research to allow for easy cellular cloning has made it easy to produce artificial limbs and organs of full functionality, pursuant to the body not rejecting the new attachment. While prosthetics are highly advanced and mostly as functional as the original limb, they're mostly worn by people whose bodies will reject vat-grown replacements. Cloned replacement parts are at their most effective when grown from the patient's own tissue, an option that isn't always available and costs more money than simply using a generic part or prosthetic. Curing blindness is possible with cybernetic eyes, which look visibly different from real eyes; allowing for blind organic eyes to see again generally produces "low resolution" vision and people blind from birth tend to suffer from extreme confusion when granted sight for the first time as adults. Advanced cochlear implants allow for deafness to be completely mitigated through cybernetic attachments, though these are still electronic devices that can be turned off or damaged. Glasses and contact lenses are uncommon due to the ease of eye surgery to heal defects directly. Standard first aid kits include spray-on liquid bandages containing analgesic and antiseptic, analgine painkiller pills, a hypercoagulin injector for causing rapid blood clotting, smelling salt capsules, and a superstim injector. Rather than multiple rooms with large machines, diagnostic beds include X-ray, CT, PET, MRI and ultrasound capability in a single unit weighing slightly more than 100 kilograms. Larger MRI machines have been replaced by Hypersensitive Magnetic Resonance Imaging (HyMRI), which uses superconducting magnets, inhaled or injected hyperpolarized noble gases, and inter-molecular quantum effects for a higher resolution. Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) are grown in cloning vats for use as a diagnostic tool to detect the presence of microbes and viruses. Large hospitals have automeds, which function as robotic trauma pods with diagnostic equipment and surgical tools for automatically keeping a patient on life support and performing surgery; a surgeon can also remotely operate the equipment inside. The body of an injured person can be placed in suspended animation through a combination of chemicals, drugs, and a very low temperature in the cryogenic chamber. The patient exists at a very low metabolic rate, allowing for a mortally injured person to be preserved in the event that healing is possible. The same technology was used to colonize Pluto, as the body inside only requires 1/10th of the life support requirements of a "live" passenger and ages at 1/10th the rate. Because of the low gravity of Luna, Mars, Io, and Pluto, residents would ordinarily suffer bone and muscle degeneration. Injections of ursaline are required monthly on Mars and weekly on the other planets and moons to prevent atrophy. The low gravity also causes people born and raised on these colonies to grow very tall and lanky (similar to Marfan Syndrome) compared to those raised on Earth, Venus, or a space station; the brittleness of their bones and weakness of their lungs causes them to suffer ill health when placed in higher gravity and they may die after spending too long on Earth or a space station. Martian-born humans often require sunglasses and steroids when traveling to Earth to avoid blindness from outdoor sunlight or weakness and pain from their lower bone density and atrophied muscles. The lower gravity also makes giving birth a very painful and long process due to the atrophy of those muscles, leading to pregnant residents often traveling to a nearby station, Earth, or Venus to ensure a predictable delivery. Low Gravity humans who regularly travel to space stations, Earth, or Venus will stay in remote controlled water tanks on treads with diving masks and an intercom to the outside. Robotics Artificial intelligence remains in a limited state. Programs of similar intelligence to dogs are easy to create, but neural network AIs have not yet passed the Turing test (though they can provide a convincing facsimile). Drones of limited intelligence are commonly used for janitorial duties and many systems and convenience devices are automated to operate without human intervention, but most jobs are still performed or at least monitored by humans. The most intelligent AI are used as robotic pets. Military operations frequently involve autonomous or remote controlled drones for tasks from bomb disposal to reloading externally mounted weapons. Manufacturing Manufacturing is almost entirely automated, as robots on simple programs are far faster and more reliable than humans. 3D printers are common in households and aboard ships, including for printing metal. Trash bins are generally hooked up to recyclers to allow for waste to be broken down into its components and reused.